Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1981

The Life and Times o f Sir Kai Ho Kai By G. H. Choa Sir Kai Ho Kai, CMG (1857-1914) was the first Hong Kong Chinese to qualify in medicine, the second Chinese barrister to be admitted into the Supreme Court and the third Chinese to sit on the Legislative Council in Hong Kong. During the 24 years, from 1890-1914, when he was Legislative Councillor, Sir Kai rendered many valuable public services in Hong Kong. His particular contribution lay, perhaps, in making Western medicine available to the Chinese. In 1887, he found­ ed the Alice Memorial Hospital and the Hong Kong College of Medicine and helped to establish the University of Hong Kong, which was opened in 1912, when the Hong Kong College of Medicine was ab­ sorbed into the new Faculty of Medicine. Sir Kai was an ardent supporter of first the Reform Movement in China and later, through his relationship with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, his student at the Hong Kong College of Medicine, the Revolution. He also wrote a number of essays on reform, which were significant contributions to the literature of political philosophy published during the late Ch'ing period. In addition to details of Sir Kai's life and his family, this book vividly describes Hong Kong in its early years of development: the place, the people, the notorious bubonic plague which broke out in 1894 and was to affect Hong Kong for the subsequent 30 years, and the prejudice of the Chinese community against Western medicine. It also depicts amusing anecdotes concerning some of the prominent citizens of the day and thumb-nail sketches of some famous Chinese mandarins, reformists and revolutionaries. Social Life and Development in Hong Kong Edited by Ambrose Y. C. King & Rance P. L. Lee The dramatic emergence of Hong Kong as a major industrial metropolis is an economic miracle. Industrialization, urbanization and westernization proceed at a breathtaking pace without rupturing the social and political fabric. Political stability is securely maintained amidst such changes in a society still embedded in a colonial political structure. These phenomena make Hong Kong an intriguing and challenging subject for social scientists. Hong Kong is a living laboratory for the study of the interplay between the forces of modernization and political integration, and between the ideas and values of the East and the West. The papers collected in this volume address themselves to selected aspects of the subject. They represent some of the major research results of the Social Research Centre of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in the past decade. The papers are group­ ed into two sections; metropolitan structural develop­ ment, and institutional characteristics and their change. The former deals with topics such as high- density living, development of new towns, small factories and population mobility. The latter contains materials related to the political, family, religious, cultural and medical institutions in the urban setting. On the basis of the findings of the papers, some general theoretical perspectives of the socio-economic system of Hong Kong become clear. They form the basis for further study of the society. The introduc­ tion by Prof. C. K. Yang, a renowned sociologist, is a useful guide to the book. 30